Random Alaska February Pics

[NightTrain]

Hello, everyone!

I know I've been MIA lately, it's been due to working 7-10s in remote Alaska - those hours without break burn you out. But every now and then I had the time & energy to snap a few pics, and I thought some of you might be interested.

First, my apprentice up in a bucket truck in -55 F doing some aerial fiber work up in Barrow :

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My apprentice climbing the pole with 3 fiber drops hooked to his belt. He'll fasten these to the pole properly, giving these 3 houses world-class internet to their home when we complete the final stage - fiber optic connection from their modem to the internet. We can't always get the Bucket Truck close enough to the pole, so there's climbing involved.

In most locales, you would bury the cable underground. However, in Barrow, there's permafrost, so you can't bury things and it all has to go aerial.

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Me, in neg 55 :

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Me, later that day cooking dinner for 6 hungry guys :

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[NightTrain]

jimnyc please rotate

[NightTrain]

The moon from the furthest point in the USA :

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Me in -55 weather :
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[NightTrain]

More tomorrow.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

@NightTrain (http://www.debatepolicy.com/member.php?u=89) ... I saved the pictures you wanted rotated because I can rotate them right on my image host website, but when I saved them to my computer, they were the right way up. So I opened them in my Adobe Photoshop and they're right side up there also.

I think there's something about the board's programming or coding that likes to load pictures in landscape by default, not portrait, and it rotates them.

[Abbey Marie]

Do you always send the apprentice up the pole? I hope so. Great pics, NT!

:coffee:

[Elessar]

Bucket or not, it takes some 'nads to climb a pole in that kind of cold!

[High_Plains_Drifter]

Bucket or not, it takes some 'nads to climb a pole in that kind of cold!
It takes a good pair to climb a pole period. I used to work for this company a long time ago during the summer called Henkels & McCoy, and we tore down old telephone poles that were rotten and new ones had been put up, and sometimes they'd still have old wire on them and we'd have to put on the belt and spikes and climb the pole to take it down. It was pretty tricky seeing as though these poles had large splits and such in them because they were quite old and rotten, so you had to be extremely careful where you put your hook. You don't pay attention and put your hook in a big crack and then you do what they called "burn out," where you lose both your hooks into the pole and slide down while the belt squeezes you into the pole, and you hope and pray you don't get any big slivers on the way down. I never liked climbing with spikes, but it's probably a whole lot easier on a brand new pole, but still, it's really gotta be a bitch in -55 below with a ton of heavy clothes on. I honestly don't know why someone would want to do that anyway. The money would have to be spectacular... ;)